Today I made/bought/learnt (for a post oil world) 5

[Shaved Monkey]

Bought a new second hand car
It uses nearly half the fuel of the previous car.
Major problem with the old car was the repair bills were getting way more expensive than the fuel bills.(22 years old)
My fuel bills were only $300ish a year so should drop to $150 to $200 a year and hopefully give me upto 10 years of pretty reliable motoring.(next car will probably be a second hand diesel hybrid or a scooter)
Out of town shopping trips should be about $15/20ish down from $25/30ish
Even a 10 fold increase in fuel costs should still be in my budget.
Just bought a case of rice wine, fish sauce,jumbo bag of dried shitake and dried shrimp,chillies and bulk spices and bulk legumes(for food and green manure) from the big city Asian grocery store when buying the car so that's about 4 years supply of stuff I cant readily source locally.

[PrestonSturges]

I've been spotlighting the big doe that's been eating our vegetables when it comes out of the woods and hangs out in the neighbors yard. I've been shooting it in the butt with my Crossman air rifle, 4 pumps at 25-30 yards. I like to think it will learn to avoid the area entirely, but it may just learn to run when it hears a door open.

[careinke]

I've been spotlighting the big doe that's been eating our vegetables when it comes out of the woods and hangs out in the neighbors yard. I've been shooting it in the butt with my Crossman air rifle, 4 pumps at 25-30 yards. I like to think it will learn to avoid the area entirely, but it may just learn to run when it hears a door open.

You could try and make some of Sepp Holtzers "Bone Sauce." Here is a link:

http://www.permies.com/t/1805/permacult ... ep-animals

He claims it will keep deer away for "Decades". Decades seems like a long time, but he insists it is true.

Being the experimenter I am, plus the fact I was losing the "battle of the deer", I made some two years ago and painted it on my trees. So far, So good. I have not had a deer problem in two years. The first couple of days after application, a few deers came down to try a bite, but quickly left. After the first week nothing.

I was very skeptical about this working, but results speak for themselves. This year I have planted even more trees, and I plan on treating them too.

[Shaved Monkey]

Today the community garden is buying 120 kilos worth of staples potatoes, onions carrots, sweet potatoes and apples at wholesale prices,to be sold for a fraction above cost to who ever turns up.
Plenty of locally grown/produced food to be swapped or given away too.
The small profits return to the garden to continue our works of providing even more food and improving our whole communities food security.

Fear of Peak oil started this.

[RedStateGreen]

Been planting sweet potatoes and mulching the stuff I've already planted. And pulling weeds. For some reason, we have a LOT of weeds this year. My rabbits are very happy.

[careinke]

I've officially given up my former life. The catalyst, was discovering that my hand tailored business shirts, make fine over-shirts to keep the sun off when I'm in my garden. The suits, will probably go to good will.

Honestly, I think I'm on the right path.

[Shaved Monkey]

Well done.
I have hand tailored fine merino suits and bespoke silk shirts in the cupboard too.
Haven't worn them for over 4 years.
Kept them as a safety net, just in case.
So far have not needed them.
Its a good feeling.
.....................................
Spent yesterday marcotting all these exotic fruit trees,some of which we will have no idea of what they are until they fruit in 5 to 10 years.
Great day of discovering incredible stands of exotic mature fruit trees on a large local property, googleing images on the iphone to try and identify the trees.
Shovelling trailers of free horse manure this week
Slowly building resilience in the community.

[vtsnowedin]

My new John Deere was delivered Friday and I have spent part of the weekend mowing back a decades or more of brush growth on a couple of my fields.

[PrestonSturges]

I can't say I've done much except try to keep everything alive in the 100+ degree heat. My neighbor had a French drain put in, and I was able to score a couple yards of dirt in my wheelbarrow to a low spot that I had previously edged with small boulders. The dirt moving was all downhill. I pretty much got that little ping-pong table sized terrace filled and planted with heat loving grass. Not really sure what it's for, maybe just sitting.

[Shaved Monkey]

Just offloaded about 2 tonne of mulch
Massive mountain of mainly wood chip loaded and delivered free by my neighbour using his 4x4 to get it just where I needed it.
I had to offload......knackered
Will spend the next month or so spreading it around and improving my soil.
Already planted potatoes in some and will get some pumpkins and beans going soon too.

[PrestonSturges]

Starting to pick figs, maybe a couple hundred minus what the birds get. The Conadria fig is finally putting out figs with pink flesh like it's supposed to, much better quality than the first couple years.

I'm going to repot some of the air layered branches and sell them on Craigslist.

[Loki]

:-D My new John Deere was delivered Friday and I have spent part of the weekend mowing back a decades or more of brush growth on a couple of my fields.

That'll be a fun toy. Why new instead of used, though?

[vtsnowedin]

:-D My new John Deere was delivered Friday and I have spent part of the weekend mowing back a decades or more of brush growth on a couple of my fields.

That'll be a fun toy. Why new instead of used, though?

Lots of reasons, some better then others. Zero percent financing for one. If hyper inflation or anything like it happens in the next five years I'll be paying it off with dollars worth much less then the purchase price today.
Second if you buy new you don't have to worry about what the previous owner did to it and forgot to tell you about. That just leaves the factory line crew and the shippers. That cuts your potential problem by at least a third, perhaps more as the first owner is the weakest link in the chain.
I expect to own this tractor for the rest of my life and then to pass it on to my heirs. Starting off with a new one today gives me a chance to give them an asset with real value when I'm gone not just a pile of worn out iron.

[Pops]

What size is it VT? 40hp or so? looks just right for a right sized farm.

[Shaved Monkey]

Growing mushrooms take 2
First lot failed.

[Loki]

Growing mushrooms take 2
First lot failed.

Magic mushrooms I assume

I have no idea how my shiitake logs are doing. I have about 50 of them. Guess I'll find out when I try to force some of them in the fall. I was watering them once a week or so (depending on rain) but after doing a bit more reading I learned that I was probably watering them too often. There's not much info on how often to water shiitake logs, but based on what I can glean it might be best to give them a deep watering once or twice a month. Ideal conditions are wet inside, but with dry bark. Really should have weighed a few while they were fresh to keep as reference logs to better monitor moisture content. Next batch I guess.

Did find that the soy-based wax I got from the mushroom company flakes off after a few weeks. The cheese wax I used on some of the logs works much better. Not sure if it'll make any difference.

[Shaved Monkey]

Growing mushrooms take 2
First lot failed.

Magic mushrooms I assume

Pretty sure they grow wild around here, haven't been out looking since my early 20's in a few rainforest gullies.
My ones are Portabellos local nursery sells spores for a few different varieties will venture out to some more exciting varieties as I get a little more confident in my abilities to grow them.

[EdwinSm]

Just took delivery of an EcoFan to go on top of the wood burning stove in the kitchen. But I will have to wait until it gets cold to see if it lives up to its hype. But looks nice, and I am learning things like what a 'Seebeck Effect' is and how the stove heat is used to create electricity.

I went through a local distributor although I know I could have got it cheaper from further afield (ie getting my daughter to bring it when she next visits), but I thought it best to encourage (relatively) local firms as this seems to be the sort of goods that might be of wider use during (and after) a time of power down.

For those who want more details see www.caframo.com It is Canadian made (but that is not where I live).

[rangerone314]

What I've been doing for some time is retaking the garden areas back from weeds due to my work establishing a mulched area in the south eastern hedge that is populated by holly trees. Of the 3 main areas on my properties, the East is pretty much under control: mulched beds lacking any real weed presence, or edible groundcovers like creeping raspberries.

The West, which has a smaller cultivated area, the vine area (grapes, kiwis, hops), got partly overrun by weeds, but I made a dent last week in retaking that area.

The North is a vast area, and today I cleared most of the rest of the northeast hedge. (230 gallons of weeds pulled Friday and today) and more mulch spread around. After the West is done, I will push into the "Core", where I have the vast bulk of fruit trees, nut bushes & fruit bushes.

As I retake the overrun areas from weeds, I maintain weeding on the areas already cleared.

[Shaved Monkey]

I've bought some coco peat to start marcotting my blueberries and gruminchana to create some hedges.
Will also take some more rooted cutting of other species to give to the Community Garden.